Spizella Pusilla
Order Passeriformes
Family Passerellidae
Adult.— Top of head and back reddish-brown; a rusty streak behind the eye; cheeks otherwise grayish; gray line over eye, but no black line through it; bill reddish-brown; wing-bars whitish; under parts gray; breast washed with pale buff.
Nest, placed on the ground, or in a low bush.
Eggs, white, with brown markings.
The Field Sparrow is a summer resident of southern New England and the lower Hudson Valley; in northern New England it is confined to the cleared land in the settlements, and it is absent in the Canadian Zone. It arrives early in April, and remains through October. There are several records of its occurrence in Southern New England in winter. Old pastures, overgrown with high bushes and cedars, and the edges of woodland are its favorite resorts; it is never a bird of the yard, or of the cultivated fields.
Its song is a fine strain, beginning with two or three high sustained, piercing notes, then running into a succession of similar, more rapid notes, all in a minor key, and often running down, or occasionally up, the chromatic scale. Sometimes the last rapid notes rise, and occasionally one note is repeated throughout. A beautiful form of the song, often given towards evening, is made by a repetition of the whole in a different key, as soon as the first part is ended. The call-note is a tsip lighter than that of the Chipping Sparrow.
The reddish-brown bill of the Field Sparrow is the best mark by which to distinguish it from the Chipping Sparrow; any one familiar with the bird soon learns also to recognize a certain characteristic aspect of the side of its head, where its black eye stands out in contrast with the light gray around it; in the Chipping Sparrow the black line through the eye and the white line over it give the head a very different appearance.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)